Post Archive by Month

Clinton’s main scheduler Lona Valmoro emails Clinton a list of seven names who will be attending an upcoming meeting. One name will later be redacted with an indicator that it is a secret CIA official. (US Department of State, 1/7/2016)

The White House made a deal when Hillary Clinton became secretary of state that all of former President Bill Clinton’s paid speech offers would be approved by State Department ethics officials.

In mid-November 2011, Bill Clinton’s aides tell department officials about an offer Bill Clinton has received to give a videotaped speech to the Shanghai Sports Development Foundation. This is a charity funded by wealthy Chinese hedge fund manager Kai Jiang. Unlike all previous speech requests, department officials raise concerns. They are worried that the Chinese government might actually be ultimately funding the speech or planning to benefit from it. Department ethics lawyer Chip Brooks writes in an email: “There is something peculiar about [Jiang] paying for a talk that will be to an event sponsored by a Chinese Government entity, even if it is considered to be non-profit by the organization. Can we confirm the payment is actually from Mr. Jiang and not from the [Shanghai Sports Development] Foundation or the Chinese Government?”

However, over the next two weeks, officials struggle to get basic information from Clinton’s aides about the event’s hosts, their possible connections to the Chinese government, and how much Clinton would be paid.

After at least seven back and forth emails, on December 2, 2011, Clinton’s aides tell the department, “We are not going to proceed with this.” But there’s no further explanation why the speech offer is cancelled. Politico will report in 2015 that out of Clinton’s hundreds of speech offers, this “is the only proposed event in the released records for which official questions look to have played a role in scuttling the appearance.” (Politico, 2/25/2015)

Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) CEO Ira Magaziner sends an email to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, Clinton Foundation foreign policy director Amitabh Desai, Douglas Band (an aide to former US President Bill Clinton), and two others, regarding Saudi Arabian and Ethiopian billionaire Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Ali Al-‘Amoud. Magaziner writes: “CHAI would like to request that President Clinton call Sheikh Mohammed to thank him for offering his plane to the conference in Ethiopia and expressing regrets that President Clinton’s schedule does not permit him to attend the conference.”

Desai replies, “Unless Sheikh Mo has sent us a $6 million check, this sounds crazy to do.“

Band then comments, “If he doesn’t do it CHAI will say he didn’t give the money [because] of wjc [Bill Clinton].”

Podesta writes, “I agree with Doug and this seems rather easy and harmless and not a big time sink.”(Wikileaks 10/12/16)

Thus it can be seen Sheikh Mohammed is giving some money to the foundation, though the amount is unknown. Also, the exchange shows Podesta, who has no position in the foundation, helping make foundation decisions.